Nana Aba Appiah Amfo Quotes

The two concepts driving my tenure are technology and humanism. We need to incorporate technology in our teaching and learning in small and big ways.

Because I do believe I’m not the only one who works the hardest – yes, I do work hard, but it’s also important to take advantage of opportunities as they come, because they prepare you for positions ahead.

In my induction speech, I clearly stated that my goal as Vice-Chancellor would be to train students who are critical thinkers, technologically adept, humane, culturally sensitive and ready to provide leadership for the nation and continent.

Men have dominated our boardrooms, men have dominated academia. Here in my university, the proportion of women academics, that’s just about 30 per cent. And as you can imagine, the higher you go up the ranks, the fewer women that you find. But, I must say, that it’s a good time at my university, I am the first female vice-chancellor. For the first time too, we have a female chancellor, we also have a female council chair for the first time. It is a source of encouragement to many females out there, but also for males – they dream for themselves, they dream for their wives, their daughters, their sisters.

Lifelong learning must not be confined to the classroom or to any age in life as life is dynamic; and the day you stop learning, you become intellectually dead and cease to be relevant to your society.

Pragmatics specifically looks at language use in context. For you to be able to make meaning out of what we say, you almost always need the context. Sometimes you need the history, the religion, the culture, you need the philosophy and so on.

Understand the authority you have; but keep your head low because positions don’t last forever. It’s not really about you, it’s about your office. If you don’t build networks and lifelong relationships, you could be very lonely at the end of your tenure.

From the beginning it wasn’t something I had my eyes on but as I built my academic career, as I developed my administrative competencies, and with the inputs and support of others I worked with, at some point I convinced myself that when the position is vacant I will give it a shot.

Be unfazed by obstacles. Obstacles are going to come on your journey, but be unfazed. Like me, you are bound to have setbacks and rejection, but don’t back down. Without a resilient spirit, you’re bound to give up when you’re ultimately meant for the top.

You can’t do everything by yourself. Be on the lookout for talent; know the wide array of skills and strengths of your team and harness them for your benefit.

I will say I have been blessed in many ways as I started my family life before my career. I started my Master’s when my first child was four months old so while I was studying, I was raising him. And this was out of Ghana so I didn’t have my mother or auntie to support me in raising him, which made it difficult. While I was doing my Master’s I had my second child.

I launched the Vice-Chancellor’s Programme for Classroom Modernisation and Learning Experience, One-Student; One-Laptop, and our hotspot comfort zone as part of the technology and humanity focus.

We should be less focused on assessing students based on memory, and more on application. For that to happen, we need to focus on teacher training, incentivise our brightest students to go into teaching and keep small class sizes to allow for more interaction.

It’s a combination of hard work, identifying opportunities and taking advantage of those opportunities, and some favour from God that makes great.

students must be challenged to focus on critical thinking and analytical skills since rote learning has not been helpful, there is the need to create avenues for students to explore their creative sides, music and dance.